hello again, i have this battle going on within myself.. my father had radiation/chemo first, which was long and agressive.. he seemed to respond well to the treatments, had clear biopsies in agusut and cancer back in november of this year.. so he had the big surgery on tuesday.. how does one know exactly what to do first.. he was first told back in februaryl that he would have to have his entire tongue, voicebox and jaw removed or do treatments.. of course we did treatments.. i hate that i am questioning our decision.. help.. please

Please dont make yourself nuts over this. I was faced with the same thing when I first got sick. I was told that I could go ahead and do the huge surgery and be very disfigured or try to cure it with chemo and radiation. Of course I chose the less invasive option and went thru chemo and rads. Unfortunately it came back and was successfully removed by a small surgery. Then it came back and the camcer was in my jawbone which was a stage IV. So I ended up doing a big surgery anyway.

Thinking back, I would have done the exact same thing. I had clear PET scans between each recurrence and felt great. You did what you thought was the best choice and unfortunately your dad has to go thru surgery anyway. That isnt something anyone could have predicted. Dont be so hard on yourself. I hope your father isnt second guessing himself either. Best of luck to your father with his recovery.

hello christine, thank you again for your words.. i see him go through all this and i think to myself is there something we should have done differently? i just tell myself that we did the right thing.. i asked the ENT if doing the treatments first was the wise thing to do and he said it is very unlikely that the he could have saved the voicebox and tongue... ugh you are right i can't make myself crazzzy over this..

You did what anyone would have done. You gave it a shot and your dad had a chance of it working before doing surgery where he didnt have any chance at all. Dont worry so much, it was the right and only choice.

Nicki

Take a deep breath, hold it, release and relax. There is zero guarantee that having the surgery first would have changed anything. It's not like if you Dad had the surgery then he would have been able to avoid the radiation and chemo. Standard practice is to give rad and chemo even after major surgery.

When my cancer came back, I had very similar thoughts, worries and second guesses. I was driving myself nuts and put my poor ENT on the spot, asking why she hadn't done the surgery first thing. She explained that they were trying to "spare me" and that for the majority of her patients even those with Stage IV, the radiation and chemo does the trick.

I am speaking from sad experience when I tell you that the aftermath of the surgery was far more devastating to my quality of life than the radiation and chemo the first time.

You sound like such a caring daughter that I am quite positive that if you had pushed for the surgery and then your dad couldn't eat or speak, you would be posting here and blaming yourself for not doing the radiation and chemo first to see if they worked.

Like Christine, I would make the exact same choice to skip the surgery at first and take the way of less harm.
Charm

I had a local Oncologist tell me that I needed rads and chemo but listened to one from a bigger and better known CCC. He said just surgery. Then told me he had gotten the cancer and just I needed follow up visits. About 3 weeks later , after another biospy, I was told I needed rads and chemo as the OC was back. The 1st Oncologist I saw did the rads and chemo, then had my teeth removed for Rad seed implants. No fun then or now as I hurt more in what's left in my mouth than I thought possible. Now I am waiting to see a Surgeon at UPMC in Pittsburgh for the complete removal of my lower jaw and and what they an do to replace it or make life durable. Hell, I have 25 more years to live so I hope it isn't too bad. LOL life goes on and so will I with a smile if it is possible. If not, then canned laughter will be in my pocket. Hard to say which choice to make between surgery or rads and chemo.

Thank you guys for the responses.. i have been beating myself up about this.. i just keep telling myself that by doing the chemo and s first we saved his voicebox and some of his tongue.. i guess i really will not be put at ease until i know just how successful this surgery was.. he had clear margins, so thats good right? haha.. ugh so much info.. thank you AGAIN

EzJim are you cancer free right now? do they want they jaw removed because of biopsy result or because of damage done by radiation? sorry if too many questions..

I hope I am cancer free . I think it's damage from the Rads, Chemo and the Rad Seed Implants. Whatever it is, it is slowly eating my flesh away from my jawbone. Behind my front jaw it's gone and a good bit on both sides went with it.

i hope and pray that you are cancer free as well... my dad's constant pain after radiaation and chemo is what alarmed the ENT and oncologist, that is why we went ahead and did more biopsies early and sure enough it was back.. but pain is a sign that something is wrong.. doesnt necessarily mean cancer.. he was doing well then just stopped healing..